But as the world works to develop quantum computers that have practical uses, the hardware is vulnerable to breaking down.

Advertisement

"What we fundamentally do is help solve the hardest of problems. Quantum hardware tend to be very fragile, and can 'lose their quantum-ness'," Biercuk says.

Q-CTRL's Black Opal software lets businesses run a range of visualisations over their computing development.

The Black Opal software package is designed to sit over any hardware and uses "quantum control engineering" approaches. Companies using the product can access modelling tools to reduce errors when developing quantum-computing approaches. This aims to help hardware last for longer.

"This is not the Facebook of the quantum world. It's not a consumer-facing product," Biercuk says.

But Black Opal will help global businesses build computer systems that enable new approaches in everything from banking to health care, he says.

"We know, for example, quantum computers are likely to be useful in chemistry and chemical science for drug discovery. The average consumer doesn't know there's a huge amount of computer power behind that."

Harnessing the power of quantum physics in computing will be more important than harnessing electricity in terms of societal change, Biercuk says.

The software will be available as a free trial until early 2019 and then will be sold as a subscription service starting at $20 a month, with discounts for academic use.

"There are just people who want to learn about quantum technology and what quantum control is, and we've invested very heavily in the user interface and experience," Biercuk says.

The quantum computing space is set to hit $10 billion in the next couple of years, with Biercuk's team seeing big growth potential in the next five years.

A novel approach

Q-CTRL is aware it is a unique Australian success story: a globally-minded computing startup with ties to a university (Sydney University), where the founders have maintained intellectual property ownership.

"Some investors walked away when they heard I was hoping to maintain a role at the university," Biercuk says.

The concern was over who would own the IP.

Q-CTRL was spun out from research at the University of Sydney, where Biercuk has been a professor and the director of the Quantum Control Laboratory. The university has supported the tech's development but does not have ownership over it.

The business has raised capital from stakeholders including Data Collective Venture Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, and Sequoia Capital and Horizons Ventures.

The undisclosed investment amounts, which are in the millions of dollars, Biercuk says, have propelled Q-CTRL forward while allowing Biercuk to remain the largest shareholder in the company.

Despite strong support in Australia for the project, Q-CTRL has found setting up a company of its type here is not without complications.

Even with a PhD in physics, Biercuk says, the maze of business registration requirements seemed at times as complicated as the science.

"There’s a lot of compliance. We could throw money at the problem by paying accountants and lawyers to do the ASIC paperwork, for example. But if you're 21 or 22, just out of uni [and looking to launch something] - it's a challenge, knowing what to do."